Meditation (Philosophy Essay Sample)

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Introduction

Philosophy has played an important role in the life of man especially in the quest of man to understand the world he lives in. Many philosophers have written various essays with an aim of explaining such things as wisdom, truth, knowledge among many other important issues. Rene Desecrate is one of the earliest philosophers who tried to understand various life issues. Rene wrote many philosophical essays in an effort to make various life issues understood by men. This essay analysis the philosophical work of Rene Desecrate on meditation. This paper will make a summarized analysis of Rene’s work on meditation, which is meditation 1 and 2.

Discussion

In portion one of the meditation essay that is Desecarte’s method of doubt, the author is interested in determining the sort of things that he knows and how he come to know them. Rene puts across two methods of doubt in his determination of what he knows and how he came to know what he knows. These methods include: there is no need to carry out an examination of all his beliefs one after the other but he needs only to carry out an examination of the fundamental beliefs such as whether there is a need to trust mathematical beliefs, sensory beliefs among other foundational beliefs. Secondly, whether there is any slight possibility of a given belief being untrue, he has to reject this belief as a candidature for knowledge.

In this part Rene is making an effort to determine the sorts of things that he knows by using the criteria that he uses for knowledge is somehow infallible. If he is mistaken in any way he discounts that way as knowledge.

Meditation two the author is questioning how we came to know something, Rene in this essay applies there ways of questioning knowledge. First, he says that the sense deceives sometimes; he concludes this by reflecting on the fact that there are many cases when our senses deceive us. For example, when looking at something which is very small or which is very far, we can make a mistake in the shape or the size of the item in question. The sense can deceive us that a certain building is very high while in real reality that building is not that high as the sense makes it to be. However, Rene admitted that even if senses do sometime deceive us they are in a way pretty reliable. At this juncture he was of the view that we can use our senses to rule out knowledge.

Secondly, Rene says that one could be dreaming. He tries to answer the question regarding whether it is possible for one to distinguish dreaming from being awake. He gives an example where one in dream is convinced that he is not in a dream, no matter the craziness of the dream one is usually convinced that he/ she is not in a dream. Rene raises the question on whether one is able to determine whether he/she is awake or dreaming right now. Due to the fact that one may be dreaming, Rene discounts many of our beliefs as being candidate of knowledge. He gives an instance where one does not know whether he/she has hands. However, Rene is of the view that some things are still known to us such as logic, math or colors as they will remain unchanged whether we are in dream or not.

Finally, Rene’s third method is on the evil demon. He tries to entertain the fact that probably he is being deceived by a certain evil demon. For example, this demon could in a way influence his thinking toward anything, that the color is blue when in real sense it is not. Rene is of the view that an evil demon can deceive you to see things in a way that is completely different from reality.

Conclusion

Rene concludes that he is certain of only one thing, which is whatever one thinks of himself / herself is what he/she becomes. These findings are true in life because success or failure in life starts in one’s mind and then it translates to action. For example if one thinks that he has no ability to solve a problem at hand, he will never get a solution to his problem. Therefore, in order for one to be successful in life, it is important to embrace the culture of positive thinking in day-to-day activities. Rene has proven to us through his philosophical essay that one becomes what he thinks. It is crucial to control all types of information that we consume as it may impact the way we think. The environment that we live in should be conducive in order to stimulate positive thinking in us for the sake of our future success.

Skepticism which is mainly used in the western philosophy can be defined as the attitude of doubting the knowledge that is in existence in various fields. Rene applies philosophical skepticism in his essay on meditation by applying various methods of cutting across a number of disciplines. He uses facts from mathematics, science and general life to determine what he knows and how he comes to know what he knows. Rene has applied skepticism in his two essays by questioning the way we arrive what we call knowledge. He uses complex arguments about life by claiming what we think that we know somehow we could be dreaming. He only come to accept knowledge as the only what he has experienced directly in life. He say that you can not rely on you sight because you sight in away may be misleading. Therefore skepticism is widely used by Rene is his quest of knowing what he knows and how he come to know what he does know.